All Hail the King and Queen of Kassandra Morgan Elementary
by Demon In The Box
Summary: He was the King of the playground, and no dolled up little Princess was going to change that.


_**All Hail the King and Queen of Kassandra Morgan Elementary**_

-by Durinsbride

Chapter 1: Monday

On the first day of the new school year, Clarke could hardly wait to get going, she was so excited. Presently she was waiting for her Mom in the car, trying not to fidget, but failing miserably. They were going to be _late_ if Mom kept standing around kissing Dad like that. She rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh while glaring at her stupid parents. Parents were _always_ doing things like that—hugging and kissing each other.

It's not that she didn't understand it on some level. She was starting to notice things about boys, and she thought she was beginning to understand what her Mom liked so much about her Dad, but this kissing boys thing was just beyond her. Sure, boys were kind of...neat...but they were also loud, dirty, bossy and rude, and they certainly didn't follow the rules. She didn't like boys who acted like that like at _all_, especially boys who ignored the rules. If she liked boys at all, she liked boys like Wells. Boys that were smart, polite, and interested in books and puzzles and school just like she was.

Shaking her head to stop thinking about this new and weird obsession with boys, of all things, she opened up her pack to look inside while she was waiting for Mom to stop kissing—**yuck—** Dad. She admired her new pens and pencils, book covers, a ruler, a compass and a giant collection of colored erasers neatly packed in a plastic baggie with a colored ribbon. She had erasers of every color and size, and some were even shaped like animals. She was saving the Giraffe for her friend Octavia, and the Penguin for Wells.

At least…she _hoped_ she would see Octavia again, because _her_Dad was in the military, and they moved a lot. She hadn't met Octavia until just before summer break, and even though they had promised to be best friends _forever_, they hadn't spent any time together over the summer. Clarke's Dad had a new building in Arizona, and he decided to bring the whole family with him to Scottsdale for the summer. Since she'd been away for the summer she hadn't seen Octavia at all, and she didn't know if her family still lived here or not.

_Finally_ her Mom was done kissing and hugging Dad, and Mom hurriedly started the car. She thought they were going to leave, but they just sat there, Mom _still _talking to Dad through the open window while the car idled, glancing over her shoulder at one point to tell Clarke to buckle her seat belt, as if she didn't _know_ that already—geeze, she wasn't a baby!

"It's all right, Clarke. We'll make it on time. Bye, Honey!" Mom tooted the horn and waved to Dad while they finally pulled out of the drive. She glanced at Clarke again just as they were turning out of the drive. "We wont be late, Clarke. You'll see. And be careful with your dress—you look so _beautiful_! I can't wait to see your pictures."

They always took pictures on the first day of school at Kassandra Morgan Elementary. Individual and class pictures, and her Mom wanted her to look nice. Clarke didn't like dresses, actually, but she put up with it because her Mom loved them so much.

Finally—_finally_ they arrived at the school. There were cars and kids and parents everywhere. Clarke popped open the door and jumped out, immediately looking for Wells. They had so much to do to plan for the new school year!

"_Clarke_!" Her mother called after her, sounding annoyed, and she rushed back to the car to kiss her Mom goodbye.

Gottagoloveyou!" she cried, racing through the front doors on her way to find Wells.

**-8:00 am-**

She was in the same class as Octavia _and_ Wells!

How awesome was THAT! She was so happy to see Octavia that they probably hugged each other about a thousand times.

"Where were you all summer?" Octavia asked, still hugging Clarke real hard because she'd _really_ loved the Giraffe eraser, "I thought we were going to do things together and hang out?"

"My Dad's an engineer. He builds things, and we all went away for the summer to be with him. I thought that _you_ had moved away!"

Octavia shook her head, her long, glossy hair swinging gently with the motion. Octavia was _so_ pretty. She had the prettiest eyes too: they were blue and green at the same time, and her hair had every color from reddish brown to inky black, and it shone in the sun. She wished she had hair just like Octavia's, which was funny, because Octavia had told her a million times that she wished _she_ had Clarke's bright, wavy blonde hair!

"Dad's been stationed here for the next two years, so we might actually stay for a while! And now _Bellamy's_ going to school here, too!"

Clarke frowned at the name. "Who's Bellamy?"

Octavia gaped at her for moment before shaking her head and waving a hand dismissively. They'd never had a chance to meet each other's families, after all. No wonder Clarke didn't know who she was talking about.

"Oh he's just my big brother," Octavia answered, as if she were describing something highly boring and not at all relevant to their present situation. "He's in the fifth grade, so we wont see him much." she paused for a second, seemed to debate something within herself, and then added: "He's kind of a jerk and a bigmouth, anyway. He's always bossing me around, too. Nothing special."

A bigmouth, huh. _Exactly_ the kind of boy that Clarke disliked. She didn't want to hurt Octavia's feelings, but she was sure from that moment on that she would _never_ like anything about Bellamy Blake.

They had a new teacher for third grade, Miss Hu, who seemed really nice so far, if a little nervous. After taking attendance, she started talking about the things they always talked about on the first day, things that Clarke were _boring,_ because she liked it better when they actually started _learning_ things. Miss Hu told them all about how the school had started this new inish…_inishatif_ towards student health, something like that, because Clarke wasn't really listening until Miss Hu said that meant they'd have a _half hour_ outdoor recess period every day after lunch!

"So you can go outside and play and move around! We want you to be healthy and physically active—as well as _safe_, so we're going to go over the rules for the playground, okay? I want everyone to listen as best you can, because these rules are _very_ important." (Clarke nodded in agreement. Rules were indeed _very_ important.) "We want _everyone_ to be safe and to enjoy the outdoors recess while the weather holds…"

And then they'd gone over the Rules for Recess. Clarke paid strict attention to this part of class, even writing them down in her notebook as she followed along. She looked around the classroom once during this part of the discussion, and frowned when she noticed that no one was writing down the rules like she was. Well, it was a good thing that _she_ was at least, because _someone_ had to take charge.

** 1. ** **Do not push, shove, or hit another student at _any _time. **** 2. ** **No fighting, name-calling or bullying of other students is allowed at any time. Alert a teacher immediately if any of these occur.**** 3. ** **Take turns and be polite and patient when using the slide, swings or any other equipment in the playground.**** 4. ** **Well the bell rings for the end of recess, you must line up to return to class immediately.**

When Clarke finished writing, she sat back to admire her list, which matched the words on the whiteboard perfectly. There. If anyone needed to know the rules, or forgot them, then she could just show them her list, and that would be the end of that.

Just as she was putting her pencil back into her supply box, she noticed a boy with long brown hair staring at her. When she looked over at him, curious, he dropped his eyes immediately and blushed a deep red. She kept her gaze steady, watching him for a moment, and when he looked up again and saw that she was still looking at him, he broke out into a bashful smile, before dropping his eyes again.

Huh. Clarke shrugged her shoulders. She just didn't _get_ boys sometimes.

Then Miss Hu told them about the consequences of breaking the rules. Detention slips, phone calls home, suspension of recess privileges, and blah blah blah. Clarke wasn't too sure of all the details because she was bored again, and didn't really care. she liked rules better than she did consequences. Nobody was going to do anything bad anyway. They weren't _babies!_

**-Just before recess, about 12:25pm-**

"All right everyone! We're going to line up—quietly!—to go outside for recess," Miss Hu was telling them after lunch. "Now remember when we talked about Safety Buddies? We're going to do that now."

Clarke started to panic. _Safety Buddies_? When did Miss Hu talk about _that_? She turned back to her desk so she could grab her notebook, and ran right into a boy that had been standing close behind her.

"Hi," he said shyly, blushing as he looked at her. "My name's Finn—do you want to be Safety Buddies?"

Oh. It was that boy that had been staring at her earlier.

Clarke was at a momentary loss for words. She'd just run into a boy, for gosh sakes, and while he was…kind of...cute, she didn't even know what Safety Buddies were, anyway. Besides that, she wanted Wells or Octavia as her partner.

"I already have a partner," she said a bit coldly, sweeping her long hair back over her shoulder.

Watching her, the boy blushed harder. He had brown eyes and long, brown hair, almost as long as a girl's. He was staring at her, too, like she had something on her face, and Clarke started to feel a funny little flutter in her stomach just by looking into his eyes. He _did_ have nice eyes…

"Oh…I'm s-sorry." He was now looking down at the floor, and seemed to be fidgeting a little. "I know that you and that pretty dark-haired girl are friends," (and Clarke tried to ignore the little niggle of jealousy she felt when the shy by called Octavia pretty) "but it looks like she has a partner already."

Clarke started to glance around the classroom, bending and stretching her neck to see over the taller kids, to look for Octavia. The sooner she found her, the better. Then they could go outside and play together, like they'd planned.

But it seemed that this boy was right. When she finally saw Octavia, she was standing in the middle of a group of boys that were arguing about something. There were even a few girls standing nearby, looking hopeful.

"Boys!" Miss Hu was saying, "Stop this fighting at once! You're upsetting Octavia!"

Except Octavia didn't look upset. She was smiling in the middle of all of those boys and looking back and forth between them. She certainly wasn't saying anything to _stop_ them from fighting. One of the boys Clarke recognized. His name was really funny—Atom, spelled like the things molecules were made of, and not ADAM, Adam.

"I asked her first!" One of the boys was saying.

"Who cares?" Atom replied. "She wants to go with _me_!"

Miss Hu was holding the sides of her head like she had a headache. Her Mom did that too sometimes. Why did Grownups get headaches so often?

"I tell you what—" Miss Hu said after a moment. "How about instead of Safety Buddies we just go ahead and make you guys a Safety Team, hmmm? You can each share in the responsibility of taking care of _each other_, okay? How does that sound?"

She looked at each boy (and one or two of the girls) in turn.

The taller boy—his name was Jasper, wasn't it?—shrugged, a fierce scowl still twisting his face.

"I asked her_ first_," he said under his breath, throwing a glare at Atom. He looked like he was about to cry.

"Actually, _I_ asked _you _first," said another boy standing near the back of the group. He was that really shy kid that liked plants a lot. What was his name again?

"Not now, Monty!" Jasper said.

Oh _yeah_, that's right. Monty. He was kind of cute, too.

"See? I told you she had a partner already," said a shy voice behind her shoulder, and Clarke spun around to look at the shy boy again, almost having forgotten her was there. She still didn't want to partner with him, even if he _was _a little cute. There was still Wells—

Who was standing next to that girl, Roma, and he was smiling and shifting back and forth on his feet. He only did that when he was excited or happy, or something.

Clarke frowned. What was wrong with everybody all of a sudden. Wells wasn't really a boy. Well, he _was_ a boy technically but he wasn't _really_ a _boy_ boy. One that liked girls. But now here he was, suddenly liking girls.

Feeling abandoned, Clarke had no choice but to turn back to the shy boy and accept his offer of partners, seeing as she had no choice.

"Okay, Erin. I guess we're partners."

"My name is Finn…" he replied quickly, as if for some reason he really wanted her to know it. "And your name is Clarke…but you really should be called Princess," and now his face was as red as a tomato as he gestured at her dress, her hair. "Because you l-look like one."

And then his bashful smile was back.

Clarke couldn't fight the blush that suddenly heated her face. She was so embarrassed she wanted to fall through the floor and just _die._ She'd forgotten that she was wearing this stupid dress her Mom picked out for the school pictures: a white and gold dress with a white taffeta underskirt. It was frilly and fluffy and hard to sit in. The top was heart-shaped and tied in the back with a large gold bow. She had a matching bow in her hair and pretty gold shoes on her feet. She kind of had to admit that the dress certainly made her _look_ pretty, but no one else in school was as dressed up as she was…

"I'm _not_ a princess," she snapped, throwing her best dead-eyed glare at Finn and crossing her arms over her chest. This stupid, _stupid_ dress. Maybe if she glared at him enough he would just go away. It worked on a lot of people, actually. "In fact—" she decided to add, because for some reason she felt she had to, "I want to be a Doctor when I grow up. Just like my Mom."

That stupid boy was still smiling at her, and he didn't seem so embarrassed anymore. "Whatever you say, Princess."

Oh, boys! They were so…so…

Clarke fought the impulse to stamp her foot in anger. She wasn't a _baby,_ after all.

**-On the playground, sometime later-**

They were a bunch of babies.

There was pushing, and fighting, and name-calling, too. Clarke didn't notice it at first, because she was too busy trying to tell Finn that _no_, she didn't want to sit with him and look at comic books, even if he had been thoughtful enough to put his jacket down on the bench so she could sit and not get her dress dirty.

He had called her Princess again and she was just going to remind him, _again_ that she was going to be a doctor someday, and princesses weren't doctors, and doctors weren't princesses, when she heard a commotion over by the monkey bars. So she got up to investigate, Finn following right behind.

"LISTEN **_UP_** YOU LITTLE BRATS!" Some boy was yelling, and from that alone she knew that he was trouble, and was clearly _not_ following The Rules of Recess. "NO ONE CAN TOUCH THE MONKEY BARS BECAUSE I **_SAID_** SO, GOT IT? "

She turned the corner near the swing set and saw a boy, much taller and older than the boys in her class, standing at the base of the monkey bars, trying to look like he was in charge or something. He definitely wasn't in their grade, and he must be new, because she didn't recognize him at all. Even as annoyed as she was at this Rule Breaker, she couldn't help but notice that he was sort of...well, kind of...maybe a _little_ cute. He had thick, wavy black hair and dark eyes. He was wearing black jeans with a blue and yellow Virgina _Royals_ Jersey.

He walked with a confident swagger and he had a deep, loud voice that sounded almost like a grownup's voice.

And he was…_really_ cute.

Not to mention a big, fat bully.

"NOW GET OUTTA HE-!"

He stopped short when he turned on his heel and saw Clarke, his voice falling away instantly as he stilled in surprise, looking her up and down with wide, curious eyes. Looking at her like he'd never seem a girl in his life, in fact. Clarke fought the urge to roll her eyes. Maybe he didn't know what a girl was, she didn't doubt. Boys were stupid that way.

She was the only one standing there, close to the monkey bars, close to him, with her hands clapped over her ears because of his bellowing, a sour expression on her face. Everyone else had fallen away, as if this wide, clear circle surrounded both of them, as if there were an invisible barrier than prevented them all from coming any closer—all of them except Clarke, of course.

"Who are _you_?" the boy asked suddenly, rudely, taking a step closer. He was looking her up and down, looking at her dress and at the bow in her hair with this weird, intense curiosity on his face. No boy had ever looked at Clarke like this before, as if she were something totally new and terribly weird that he was trying to figure out. Like he'd never seen anything like her before.

God, it was just a stupid _dress_.

Clarke lowered her hands, glaring at him with all her considerable might. She wasn't aware it yet, the strength of her confidence, her steely determination, and hoe it affected others, but her glare could send shyer boys and girls running. And she half expected it to happen that way with him, too. She wanted to send this tall, dark-haired boy with the booming voice on his way, preferably after offering an apology.

But he did none of these things. Instead, a wicked smirk tilted the corner of his mouth as he looked her over, lingering on her face, her hair, and her stupid dress, seemingly amused by what he saw before him.

She ignored his question (and his bad manners).

"You're breaking the rules." She informed him loftily with a little sniffle of disdain. Best to get this over with right now. Because obviously he didn't know anything about The Rules of Recess, and it was clearly time for him to learn.

He snorted (boys made all kinds of disgusting sounds) and his smirk deepened.

"What _rules_?"


End file.
